When HOSPITAL A&E nurse Andrew Hutchinson admitted raping and sexually assaulting unconscious patients, questions were raised about how this had been allowed to happen.

These became even more pertinent when it was revealed that hospital bosses were warned years ago about the serial sex offender’s predatory behaviour.

Even more concerning is the revelation that this was not the first time vulnerable women had been raped and sexually assaulted by a nurse in the A&E department of the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

A few years previously, nurse Oliver Balicao was convicted of raping a teenager girl in October 2004 and sexually assaulting a 22-year-old. The mother of the 17-year-old raped by Balicao is incensed that yet more women’s lives have been devastated, and that not enough was done to prevent sex attacks in the hospital’s A&E department.

Despite promises of an internal review, and reassurances that unconscious patients are now treated in “open visibility” areas, the victim’s mother says it is “too little too late”.

At home in Oxford, surrounded by photos of her daughter, mother-of three Jenny* says these changes should have been put in place immediately after her daughter’s rapist was convicted back in 2010.

“Why did they not do this after the nurse who raped my daughter and sexually assaulted another woman was found guilty?” she asks.

“If they had, this other nurse would surely not have had the opportunity to prey on other patients at the hospital.”

Jenny says she will never forget the shock of being told her daughter had taken an overdose and was in hospital, but this terrible news was just the start of a nightmare that continues to this day.

Why did they not do this after the nurse who raped my daughter and sexually assaulted another woman was found guilty?

Jenny*

“Her face was as white as a sheet,” she recalls. “She was very drowsy and clearly not with it but she was alive. That was all that mattered.

“I left her in front of the nurse’s station and nipped home but when I returned with my husband she had been moved into a side room.

“The drugs she’d taken were clearly still in her system and were making her hallucinate. When she suddenly declared she’d been raped by a nurse I honestly believed she was delusional.

“I’d worked at the hospital myself as an auxiliary nurse, it was a good place. Young girls didn’t get raped in this hospital, let alone by nurses. I believed the only place this terrible attack had occurred was in my daughter’s confused and medicated mind.”

When Filipino-born Balicao came in to check on her daughter, he was the “epitome of professionalism” she says.

A few weeks after being discharged, her daughter became “manic and delusional” and was placed in a secure psychiatric hospital after being diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic.

“Her dad and I, and her siblings, were beside ourselves with worry. It was totally out of the blue.”

Over the next three years Jenny’s daughter was in and out of the psychiatric unit. Then, in November 2007, Jenny was hit by another bombshell when she saw the headline, “Nurse raped patient, jury told” splashed across the front page of her local paper.

WENN

Convicted nurse Oliver Balicao

An A&E nurse from the John Radcliffe Hospital was on trial accused of raping a vulnerable teenager.

Just like Jenny’s daughter, the 16-yearold had taken an overdose after becoming depressed and was taken to A&E, where, it was alleged, a nurse had raped her. Jenny says: “I took one look at the mug shot of the accused and felt sick to the pit of my stomach. It was the same nurse who had “looked after” my daughter.

“When my daughter found out, she was distraught. She kept saying, ‘That’s the nurse that did it to me, he’s done it to someone else’. The guilt I felt at not believing what she had originally said was overwhelming.”

Balicao, a British citizen since 2006, was acquitted of rape at Oxford Crown Court the following month, but sentenced to 16 months in jail for sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust.

He was also placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register and banned from working with under-16s. Supported by her family, as well as the mental health care team she was under, Jenny’s daughter reported her rape to the police.

“She kept saying, ‘I don’t want anyone else going through what I went through’. Despite her mental illness she was determined no one else would suffer like she had.”

At the same time another young woman who had also read the court report went to the police to tell them Balicao had sexually assaulted her in October 2002, when she was being treated for blood clots on her lungs.

Balicao was finally brought to justice at Reading Crown Court in December 2010.

Jenny recalls: “Every day my daughter had to travel to court where she gave her evidence via video link. She had to have extra medication and two psychiatric nurses by her side. It broke my heart but I was so proud of her determination to stop anyone else being hurt by this man.”

The most soul-destroying part of the trial came when the jurors heard reports by two independent forensic psychiatrists that her daughter’s schizophrenia had been triggered by a massive trauma: the rape.

“This man had not only raped my daughter, he’d also stripped her of the chance of a normal life. His sick, perverted actions had opened a door in my daughter’s mind which could not now be shut,” says Jenny.

Married father-of-two Balicao, 37, was sentenced to nine years for the rape and 18 months to run concurrently for indecent assault. Afterwards the hospital’s chief nurse, Elaine Strachan-Hall, said that “actions of this kind are extremely rare in healthcare settings”, before apologising for the “actions of this individual”.

The hospital, however, never faced an independent probe. The horror Jenny’s daughter endured has been compounded these past weeks as news broke of senior nurse Hutchinson’s 18-year sentence after pleading guilty to numerous sex offences, including rapes, on unconscious women in John Radcliffe Hospital’s A&E department.

Officers found photos and videos dating back to 2011 at his home in Garford, Oxfordshire, which he had taken of himself sexually abusing female victims aged between nine and 35.

Hutchinson, who had worked at the hospital for six years and had an “addiction” to spying on women, later admitted two counts of rape, three of sexual assault, one of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent, one of outraging public decency, and 12 of voyeurism.

After the court case an Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust spokesman said that they were “shocked by the behaviour of the individual who so badly let down the patients he was entrusted to care for”, but the case has left Jenny with more questions than answers.

“Was it not also the hospital which ‘failed’ in its professional duty and responsibilities to look after patients under its care?” she asks. “Why was nothing done after my daughter was raped to prevent this happening again? And why was Hutchinson allowed to continue working despite a student nurse reporting him for taking inappropriate photographs back in 2009?”

Hutchinson is just starting his lengthy spell in prison, while Balicao may now apply for parole and could soon be released having served more than half of his nine-year sentence.

Jenny, whose daughter is now 28 and is cared for in a secure psychiatric unit, says: “In a rare moment of lucidity the other day she said to me, ‘I’m doing all this time for him! Eight years I’ve been locked up.’ And, she’s right. It’s my daughter who is serving the real sentence.”

Mark Power, director of workforce at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust, defends the hospital’s “robust policies and procedures to manage patients safely” and says: “The Trust carries out DBS checks (formerly CRB checks) on all employees who have contact with patients.

Andrew Hutchinson had this check but as he had no previous convictions, this did not identify any issues. “The ultimate responsibility for these appalling offences must rest with Andrew Hutchinson.Our staff have been devastated by his actions and his betrayal of their trust.”

He adds: “It is not possible to entirely eliminate the risk of a rogue practitioner. This does not absolve anyone from learning lessons from these terrible events and we have taken steps to eliminate the possibility of this happening again.”

He says the trust investigated the 2009 complaint against Hutchinson, but had found no grounds for action.